


Children of the Revolution

by Khirsah



Series: Patron Gifts [1]
Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Choose Your Own Adventure, Dystopian, M/M, Young Avengers in their early 20s, protest au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 13:30:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12632034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah/pseuds/Khirsah
Summary: In a dystopian NYC ruled with an iron fist by a corrupt police force, the Young Avengers aren't a superhero team—they're the revolution.Choose Your Own AdventureBilly/Teddy.





	1. The First Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luke/gifts).



> **How this works:** You'll notice three options at the end of each scene. These were the choices given to my patrons. (I am posting up to a month or more behind what they've seen.) Feel free to shout your choice to see if you can guess what will come next.

He woke up angry and feeling like shit.

“aaarrrggglllee,” Billy grumbled, instinctively curling into a ball and pressing his face against the cool give of the pillow. His head was pounding in a rhythm all its own and his mouth tasted like he’s been gargling sweaty socks all night. His legs, thighs, entire fucking body ached; he’d sprawled drunk and exhausted into bed after a long, _long_ march the day before, followed by an even longer ‘victory’ party. The plan had been to sleep his way through any resulting hangover and wake up in time for lunch with Kate.

This? This was not part of the plan.

He turned his head, squinting at the red numbers swimming up at him in the darkness. Three-oh-five. _Fuck_. Why oh why oh _why_ was he awake at three-oh-five? Even Tommy had to be in bed by now.

“sleeeeeeeep,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut again and willing himself to sink down down down into unconsciousness. He almost managed it too—but then he heard…something. Something he couldn’t quite place. Something that really shouldn’t have been there. Something that was just _off_ enough to keep his exhausted brain from settling down for another long stretch of unconsciousness.

Billy muttered a curse and flopped over onto his back, blinking up at the stained ceiling with a dazed sort of acceptance. Until he figured this out, he was pretty sure he _wouldn’t_ be sleeping.

Damn it.

He lay there, waiting for all his senses to come awake and online, feeling a decade older than his modest twenty-three. Next time Tommy tried to talk him into drinking after a day of marching, he was going to kick his ass. It felt like he was underwater, even familiar shapes taking on deeper shadows, and he could practically feel the steady pulse of his headache expanding out like a star exploding in slow motion.

Or, hey, no, more like the drone of a washer thrown off its balance: _whoosh whoosh whoosh_.

“Whoosh,” Billy said, then pressed the meat of his palms against his eyes and gave a laughing groan. Okay, maybe he was still a little drunk. But hey. _Hey_. He was smart. He was an adult. He could figure this shit out and get the hell back to sleep easy; no problem.

No muss, no fuss, no—

Right, focusing.

He kept his hands over his eyes, kept his eyes squeezed shut, and let himself concentrate past the unsteady ringing in his head. The tiny room’s single window was open, letting in the ceaseless blare of the city along with its all-too feeble breeze, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t what dragged him awake. Billy had lived in New York his entire life. He’d been rocked to sleep every night to the sound of sirens and car alarms—this was _nothing_.

But yeah, no, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there really was something there. Something he was missing. Something…something…

Billy dropped his hands and slowly lifted his head, frowning. Was that…? Concentrating past the usual city noises, past the rattle of old pipes, past the three am restlessness of a neighborhood that never quite settled into quintessence, he could have sworn he heard the unmistakable rhythmic:

  1. **Thud of heavy fists meeting flesh, drifting up from the alley below.**
  2. **Moaning and pounding of a headboard against the wall as his new neighbor broke in his equally new bed.**
  3. **Creak of the floorboards just outside Billy’s room; except, crap, wasn’t Tommy supposed to be staying out all night? If so, who the fuck was in his apartment?**




	2. The Second Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder, this is a Choose Your Own Adventure I'm running with my patrons and posting here several weeks later. Please do shout out your choices--for fun, I'll describe where the story would have gone if your votes would have taken us on a different path.
> 
> The original patrons chose 1.
> 
> 3 (your vote) would have taken the story in a completely different direction. Billy would have gotten up and stumbled into the living room, where he would have found two men scouring the place for dirt on Tommy (though Billy would have assumed it was a simple burglary at first). There would have been a scuffle, loud enough to wake his new neighbor, who would have charged in to help, fists swinging. Billy, meet Teddy.

  1. **Thud of heavy fists meeting flesh, drifting up from the alley below.**



“What the—” Billy said, sitting up on one arm. He shook his head, as if that could somehow shake free that all-too-familiar sound rising up up up from the alley just below his window.

_Thud. Thud. Thud._

_Crack._

“Shit!” He kicked free of his sheets, stumbling out of bed—very nearly crashing to the hardwood floor in an ungainly heap. His brain was sending off fireworks of alarm, but his body was still sluggish. Amazingly, the headache seemed to have vanished completely, at least for now, subsumed by a wave of panic.

That might have been Tommy down there. Or Eli. Or Kate. Or, crap, _any_ of them. Someone could have followed them home from the rally; someone could have…

He caught himself on the windowsill and leaned out the open window, trying to see down through the rusted metal bars of the fire escape. There were four figures moving down below, two bracketing a slumped-over man, another striking him with punishing blows. To the face, the stomach, doubling him over and making him wretch.

One of his friends or not, that guy needed help _now_ , or there’d be a dead body grinning up at Billy’s window come morning.

Billy pulled away from the window and dove for his bedside table, yanking the drawer free. Its contents spilled across the floor in a muted rainbow: pamphlets and stickers and condoms and a mini-taser and chewing gum. He grabbed the taser and quickly double-checked the battery—Stark wasn’t known for faulty work, but considering his luck…Billy really didn’t want to consider his luck. It lit up in his hands, however, tiny and powerful.

His heart raced in his chest; he felt like he was about to throw up.

But right, no, he was doing this. Barefoot and terrified, Billy returned to the window and scrambled out onto the fire escape. He caught the squealing metal ladder and kicked it onto its tracks, jumping on in one fluid move as it shuddered once, then _raced_ toward the ground with a scream. One of the men gave a shout of warning as the ladder jerked to the end of its reach, three feet above the filthy ally floor. Billy hopped down, scanning the area warily, trying to take in details in a glance the way Tommy had taught him.

There: the slumped body of a man, shirt torn, white Henley soaked with blood. Blond and big; not Tommy. Noh-Var? Someone new?

There: a battered black duffle bag, burst open and spilling contents across the concrete.

There: those three men, a gun at one of their hips, a nightstick on the other.

There: several feet away, a golden badge, fallen away during the tussle. Spattered in their prey’s blood.

Billy curled his upper lip, fury blooming through him in a powerful blue-white wave. “You fucking _pigs_ think you can get away with just about anything, don’t you?” he snarled. “You think that because the law of the land’s corrupt, you can get away with fucking _murder_.”

“Back the fuck out of this, pretty boy,” the man with the gun—their obvious ringleader—snapped. He wasn’t in uniform…but then, he wouldn’t be for something like this, would he? “Unless you want your head bashed in too. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

The bloodied—beaten—nearly-unconscious man strung up between the two turned his head to look at Billy with one good eye, the other already swollen shut in a mass of red. “ _run_ ,” he managed, the word whistling between his teeth. Broken jaw? Punctured lung? Something worse?  Fuck.

“No,” Billy said. He clutched the mini-taser tighter, judging his time, the distance, the likelihood of hitting the injured man. “This has everything to do with me. Come and get me, _pig_.”

The leader snarled something at his men. They dropped the blond—who immediately slumped down onto the concrete, too beaten to hold himself upright—and turned toward Billy, expressions twin masks of contempt. He took a step back, bare foot catching the edge of something sharp, but he didn’t feel the pain. All he felt was a burst of excitement, a rush of near-manic pleasure; he was doing this, he was really, really doing this.

God, it had been so long.

“It’s funny,” he said, turning the taser in his hand, lifting his other wrist. “I bet when you dragged that man in here, you had no idea just how much your night was going to _suck_.”

They lunged for him, but he was already flipping the taser on and jamming it into the join of metal that held his represser bracelet together. It popped open with a satisfying _click_ , and like a sudden tsunami, Billy’s powers _rushed_ back into him. He sucked in a breath, feeling the halo of electricity surrounding him, feeling the unfolding of chaos and will in his chest. _Twelve seconds._ It wasn’t enough to manage a more complicated spell—a spell that might force this crazy world back on track—but to save a man’s life?

Yeah. He could kick three asses in twelve seconds, easy.

He flung out the first lightning bolt, letting it arc through the first man to the other out-of-uniform cop. They jolted back with twin choked-off screams, lifting from their feet as they were caught in the middle of a powerful electrical storm. Their leader gave a terrified cry: “Mutie!” then turned and began to _run._ Billy jerked out one hand, sending another bolt flying toward that retreating ass; he couldn’t help but feel a blaze of satisfaction when the man went toppling face-first toward the alleyway floor, squealing in pain.

He could have done so much worse. It was _in him_ to do so much worse. Maybe five, seven years ago, he would have been appalled at the sheer violence he was capable of, but that had been before the registration. Before the change in government. Before the lockdown that spread across the country, putting unprecedented power in the hands of a corrupt system: before it became _us_ vs. _them_ , with the cops nothing more than the fist striking down every time the downtrodden tried to protest.

In Billy’s mind, they had this and so much _worse_ coming. But he was running out of time before the Oracle would notice an unleashed superpower; he needed to end this.

 _“I want you to get up and walk away,_ ” Billy said, putting all the weight of his will into it. “ _I want you to keep walking until dawn. I want you to forget you were ever here. Forget this man. Forget this apartment building. Forget me. You were jumped by a gang; you definitely had it coming. You’re too embarrassed to report this to your superiors.”_

He saw three pairs of eyes flare blue-white as the spell took hold, and the men staggered up to their feet. Billy crouched to grab his bracelet, wiping it against his pajama pants before reluctantly snapping it around his wrist again. This was always the worst part—letting his powers be stuffed back deep inside him again, when it felt so fucking _good_ to be free. Always, always he felt a rash moment of, _maybe I could just start running and they’d never catch me_. But no, they’d learned that lesson with Tommy six times over by now: the Oracle and the state he served were too powerful. There was no running.

There was only one way to really fight back, and that was to spark a revolution that burned so hot it left nothing of the old world in its wake.

Billy snapped the bracelet closed and fired up the taser again, letting it seal the metal shut. He felt the terrible _pull_ of his powers dissipating, like a tidal wave with him the centrifugal force. Billy braced against it, breathing through it, barley aware of the three men leaving the alleyway to him and their intended prey. He breathed through his nose and fought the urge to vomit as all that power folded up tight tight tight within his chest; all at once, that pounding headache was back. Shit.

The world tilted. Right, hell, he was still a little drunk too.

“This sucks,” Billy said. But the rush was over in a moment, and eventually he was left standing there in his bare (and bleeding) feet, taser in one hand, bile in his throat, a mostly unconscious man slumped ten feet in one direction, his busted-open duffle bag (the target these cops had been after) six feet in the other.

Billy thumbed off the taser and looked around him. He had no idea what to do next.

  1. **Go check on the injured man and find a way to get him up to the apartment. It’s a human life on the line!**
  2. **Go check the duffle. The cops were after this man for a reason; is it even safe to drag him into Billy’s life?**
  3. **Panic and try to find outside help.**




	3. The Third Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Branching path:** If Billy had gone to check the bag, he would have found useful items and a HUGE surprise.

  1. **Go check on the injured man and find a way to get him up to the apartment. It’s a human life on the line!**



He took an instinctive step toward the duffle. The world was dangerous—people were dangerous—and if this guy had some reason the pigs were on his trail, Billy needed to know what he was getting himself and Tommy into. But then the mostly unconscious man made a soft, pained noise… _broken_ , as if he were fighting against incredible agony…and Billy whirled to help.

Forget the duffle. If he was lucky, it’d still be here once he got the man to safety. If not, well, he’d deal with whatever fallout came his way.

He crouched down next to the man’s head, reaching out to carefully brush back blonde hair. He caught the faint impression of lashes fluttering over blue eyes, the skin puffing up and darkening even as Billy looked on. The man’s parted lips were busted open, blood pooling at the corners of his mouth. His breath came in alarmingly sharp whistles.

_Fuck_.

“Hey, hey there,” Billy said, feeling awkward. He looked around for somewhere to set the taser where it wouldn’t get lost or stolen, then finally sighed and kept hold of it. He’d figure that out in a minute. “Crap, you look rough. Okay. Um. My name’s Billy, and I’m here to help you, okay? Before I touch you, is there anything I need to know?”

The man moaned, soft and broken. He reached one hand down as if to push himself up, toppling back onto the hard concrete a second later. Billy jerked out a hand to stop him, only to freeze up, uncertain. He, crap, he had no idea what to do. He had no idea if he could even get the guy upstairs; Billy was strong enough, if wiry, but this guy was pure packed muscle.

And he was saying something, so quiet Billy almost missed it.

“I’m sorry?” he said, leaning forward. “I…sorry, I didn’t catch that. What…?”

“ _Teddy_ ,” the man—Teddy—said, trying to push himself up again. “I’m—I can—I’ll just—”

He started to collapse. This time, Billy let his instincts take over reason, darting in to get his shoulder under Teddy’s, one arm wrapping across his back. “Whoa, whoa,” he said, taking the full weight. “Oof, okay. Whoa. Steady there. I’ve got you.”

Teddy shook his head as if to clear it, blood pouring from his mouth. His eyes were now both nearly swollen shut, until all Billy got was the vague impression of blood-shot blue. He very obviously was favoring one side, shoulders hunched over what had to be agony ripping through his chest, his stomach. “I,” Teddy tried again, “shouldn’t be…here.”

“That’s okay,” Billy said, trying for a reassuring smile. “None of us should be here. Hey, lean on me, okay? We’re going to have to get you upstairs.”

Thank God there was an ancient elevator. If his building was a walk-up, there was no way he’d be able to manage.

“Come on,” he added, slowly beginning to rise. He kept each movement broadly telegraphed, waiting until Teddy could follow along and take a little bit of his own weight. They rose by glacial degrees, Teddy’s breath going sharp and shallow in a way Billy _really_ didn’t like. The other man kept listing, nearly toppling, only to catch himself at the last moment. There was something admirable about that—about the way Teddy was fighting so hard. It reminded Billy of his own friends. “Hey, you’re doing good,” he added, beginning to shuffle toward the mouth of the alleyway. He was aware of the trail of blood they were leaving behind them, his own cut foot stinging with each dragging step, but there wasn’t much he could do until he got Teddy safely inside. “You’ve got this.”

The look Teddy shot him was more an impression than a real expression thanks to the mangled mess that was his face, but Billy forced himself to grin crookedly in response. They were _both_ trying their best. “Did you figure when you woke up this morning that the highlight of your day would be a drunk guy complimenting you on taking three shuffling steps?”

Teddy huffed what could have been a laugh or a groan—and very nearly went crumpling into a sprawl. _Shit_.

Billy curled his fingers tight around the taser, tempted to use it again. He could get Teddy upstairs and healed in _no time_ , but, God, was it worth two bursts of power so close together? Would that be enough to call the police down on his ass?

No, no, best not to risk it.

“Just one step at a…time,” Billy said, for both of them. They hadn’t left the alley yet and already his arms and back were screaming in protest. “Be there…in…no time.”

By some miracle, they managed to make it from the mouth of the alley into the apartment building without anyone paying them any mind. By an even bigger miracle, Teddy remained conscious all the way through the entranceway, into the creaky old elevator (with its ancient toggle switches and screaming whine as it lurched its way to Billy’s floor), and to Billy’s door. It wasn’t until they were stumbling into the living room that their luck ran out—Teddy’s big muscles seizing up as he went tumbling in a graceless, unconscious heap to the floor.

“Shit, no!” Billy cried, trying to grab for him. He dropped the taser and caught at Teddy’s torn and filthy shirt, but Teddy was too big, too heavy, too _completely gone_ to do anything but drag Billy down with him. He desperately twisted even as he fell with the other man, elbow hitting the hardwood with a solid _crack_ , body going limp a few inches to Teddy’s left.

But not on him. God, that was really all that mattered—that he not land _on_ the already-injured man. That was the one consolation Billy had as he rolled onto his back with a muffled groan, staring blankly up at his ceiling as the world swirled around him.

Had he hit his head? Fuck, he thought he’d hit his head. Or was the sudden double vision just the remainder of the alcohol burning itself off?

“That,” Billy told the ceiling, words thick on his tongue, “could have gone better.”

But hey, at least they were safely inside. That was a start.

Groaning to himself, Billy sat up, ignoring the way the world wanted to dip and spin around him. He moved to his hands and knees before reaching for Teddy’s slumped shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked, already certain Teddy wouldn’t be able to answer. “Teddy?”

No reply.

Billy leaned forward, gently rolling Teddy onto his back. The other man looked absolutely _wrecked_ , skin a ghastly pale beneath streaks of blood, bruises rising like rings of smoke. Each breath came in a whistling wheeze, and there was _no way_ his ribs weren’t broken. This? Was bad.

This was really, really bad.

“Okay,” he said, mostly to himself. “Okay, okay. Think, Billy. You’re still half-drunk, there’s an unconscious stranger lying on your floor, and it’s hell-oh-clock in the morning. What do you do?”

  1. **Try to carry an unconscious Teddy into his room/onto his bed.**
  2. **Make Teddy as comfortable as possible before trying to tend to his wounds himself.**
  3. **Make Teddy as comfortable as possible before calling a healer friend to come help/use his powers.**




	4. The Fourth Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both patrons and commenters chose option 2!

**2\. Make Teddy as comfortable as possible before trying to tend to his wounds himself.** 


The obvious answer was to call Josh. Josh’s powers could have Teddy fixed up in no time, even _better_ than he’d started. But that would involve asking Josh to cross the city likely all by himself, well after dark. It would also be a risk to use that much power one right after the other—there was no telling what kind of attention they’d call down.

No, not worth the risk. It looked like they were going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

“Sorry, Teddy,” Billy said, crouching next to Teddy’s insensate body. “It looks like you’re stuck with me playing doctor. Plus side: wipe away all that blood and I’m pretty sure you’re the hottest guy I’ve ever played _anything_ with.”

Then he paused and winced, even though there was no one around who could have heard him. “And okay, wow, that was disgustingly pervy and completely un-called-for. I’m glad you can’t kick my butt for that. All right then,” he added, pushing himself up. The world spun just a little, but it was steady enough he could ignore it and soldier on. “Rags, antiseptic, bandages…aspirin.” Whenever Teddy woke up, he was seriously going to need it. “Water, an ice pack…something something.”

This would have been better if anyone else was around. Kate. Kate was _great_ at shit like this.

Billy dragged his fingers through his snarl of hair, feeling helpless, before forcing himself to turn on his heel and head to the medicine cabinet to gather supplies. It was all easy enough to find—they had run-ins with the pigs on a regular basis, each street protest another opportunity to earn a black eye—and Billy filled his arms with first aid supplies before heading back toward the living room. He veered off to grab a pillow and a towel, then stopped by the kitchen to root out some of Tommy’s vodka.

It just…really looked like Teddy might need it.

“Okay, then,” he said, padding back into the living room with overflowing arms. “I think I’ve got enough to start stitching you back together. Though I have to admit, that whistley sound is probably far past my meager expertise.” He dropped down gracelessly, hearing it again—faint and serrated, as if each breath were dragged along the jagged edge of a knife. Not good. Not good at all. “I _really_ hope none of your ribs are broken, or…you don’t have internal bleeding or anything.”

He dropped the bowl of ice water next to his knee, very nearly doubling over with sudden cramps of worry. “ _Oh my God_ , what if you have internal bleeding? I don’t even know what that looks like. I… Shit, calm. _Calm down_ , Billy,” he muttered to himself. Freaking out wasn’t going to help anyone. He just needed to keep his head and power through and trust that this strange, handsome man wouldn’t just up and die in the middle of his living room.

Billy forced himself to straighten. “Okay,” he said again. “Let’s start with…getting your shirt off, I guess. Um. Sorry about this,” he added, reaching for the scissors. They were small, meant to cut bandages, but they sliced through the hem of Teddy’s shirt and Henley easily. Billy lifted the bloody cloth away from Teddy’s skin as he carefully cut him free of his shirt, letting the rags fall around him to reveal a…really quite remarkably handsome chest, despite the streaks of blood and mottled blue-black bruises.

Wow. Teddy was _cut_.

And he really needed to stop getting distracted.

“I’m the worst,” Billy told Teddy seriously before shaking himself out and truly focusing. He assessed the damage even as he covered his pillow with the towel and gently—carefully—lifted Teddy’s head onto it. That done, he dabbed the end of a rag in the water and began cleaning him up, starting with his face. There wasn’t much he could do for the bruising, but he _could_ carefully wipe grit out of open wounds…dab them with antiseptic…use butterfly bandages to try to close up the worst cuts.

One eye was swollen nearly shut by now, and that busted lip was going to be hell later. The blood pooling at Teddy’s left ear worried him a _lot_ , and Billy once again glanced toward the window, wondering if he shouldn’t call Josh after all.

“Bad idea,” he said, and the room had grown so quiet for so long that his own voice was almost enough to spook him. Billy bit his lower lip and refocused, refreshing the bloody water and rags before going to work on the rest of him.

There was blood all across Teddy’s powerful chest and shoulders, ragged lacerations enough to have Billy hissing in a breath between his teeth. He dabbed those clean as well, holding Teddy’s hand in one of his own as he lifted his arm and began to wipe away congealed blood and filth. Those dark mottled bruises were everywhere, spanning Teddy’s chest and spiraling down his arms in strange branching designs. They were beautiful in their own way—almost poetic—and it wasn’t until Billy had cleaned his entire arm before he realized he was seeing tattoos _beneath_ the spreading bruises.

He paused, squinting at Teddy in the dim light, as the shape of his body slowly reoriented. Yes, there, across his pecs and down each arm were intricate black tattoos, but they were like nothing Billy had ever seen before. They used negative space in a way that was beautiful and…thought-provoking and evocative and _strange_ , each line echoed by blank skin in a way that tricked the eye into believing there was movement _beneath_ the images. Like…somehow the ink on Teddy’s skin was a thread weaving through multiple dimensions at once, and _holy shit_ , he needed to stop freaking himself out over nothing.

“From now on,” Billy swore, shaking away that bizarre sense of awareness, of…movement, of… “No. More. Alcohol.”

He dragged the rag across Teddy’s pecs, shivering again at the undeniable sensation that the elegant lines of Teddy’s tattoo were responding to his touch, trailing along oh-so slowly behind the path of his fingers like nails raked through sand. Or maybe it was more like the strings of a cello thrumming at each strum.

Or maybe he was hallucinating. That seemed much more likely. And yet he couldn’t quite push aside the feeling that if he touched Teddy at the point where those beautiful branching lines—that elegant negative space—met at the center of his chest… _something_ would happen.

  1. **Go on, touch it. He knows he wants to.**
  2. **Are you serious? Don’t go prodding the wounded unconscious man.**
  3. **Go lie down. Obviously tonight has already gotten way too weird.**




End file.
